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Later Platonists and Their Heirs among Christians, Jews, and Muslims
 Texts and Studies
in Eastern Christianity

Chief Editor

Ken Parry (Macquarie University)

Editorial Board

Alessandro Bausi (University of Hamburg) – Monica Blanchard

(Catholic University of America) – Malcolm Choat (Macquarie University)
Peter Galadza (Saint Paul University) – Victor Ghica (mf Norwegian School
of Theology, Religion and Society) – Emma Loosley (University of Exeter)
Basil Lourié (St Petersburg) – John McGuckin (Columbia
University) – Stephen Rapp (Sam Houston State University)
Dietmar W. Winkler (University of Salzburg)

volume 27

Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity is intended to advance the field of Eastern Christian
Studies by publishing translations of ancient texts, individual monographs, thematic collections,
and translations into English of significant volumes in modern languages. It will cover the
Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic traditions from the early through
to the contemporary period. The series will make a valuable contribution to the study of Eastern
Christianity by publishing research by scholars from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
The different traditions that make up the world of Eastern Christianity have not always received
the attention they deserve, so this series will provide a platform for deepening our knowledge of
them as well as bringing them to a wider audience. The need for such a series has been felt for
sometime by the scholarly community in view of the increasing interest in the Christian East.

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/tsec

Later Platonists and Their Heirs
among Christians, Jews,
and Muslims

Edited by

Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides
Ken Parry

leiden | boston
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022054975

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface.

issn 2213-0039
isbn 978-90-04-45026-4 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-52785-0 (e-book)

Copyright 2023 by Ken Parry and Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden,
The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink,
Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic.
Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for
re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

 The editors would like to acknowledge the rights of the Bunurong
and Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the unceded land
on which their respective properties stand

∵
Contents

Preface xi
Notes on Contributors xii

Introduction 1

part 1
Early Christian Heirs

1 Man before God: Music and Silence as Induction to Altered States

of Consciousness from Plato to Clement of Alexandria 25
Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides

2 Some Aspects of the Reception of the Platonic Tradition in Origen 61

Ilaria Ramelli

part 2
Late Antique and Early Byzantine Heirs

3 Doubts in Olympiodorus’ Later Commentaries: Could Plato Be Wrong

about Suicide and Metempsychosis? 89
Harold Tarrant

4 The Hermeneutics of Dionysius the Areopagite’s Platonic Writing

Style 111
Dimitrios A. Vasilakis

5 ‘Optimistic Monism’: The Logocentric Neoplatonism of Maximus

the Confessor 131
Dionysios Skliris

6 Damascenus Neoplatonicus: Suggestions regarding a Research Agenda

for the Study of Neoplatonism in John Damascene’s Oeuvre 153
Vassilis Adrahtas
viii contents

7 Attitudes to Cult Images in Neoplatonism and Byzantine

Christianity 171
Ken Parry

part 3
Middle and Late Byzantine Heirs

8 Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Transformation in the Thought of Michael

Psellos 211
Michael Champion

9 Psellos on Achieving ‘Likeness to God’ and Being ‘In the Image

of God’ 232
Graeme Miles

10 The Neoplatonism of Barlaam the Calabrian 244

Michele Trizio

11 Middleman or Man in the Middle? Plethon and the Plato-Aristotle

Controversy 279
Han Baltussen

12 Trapezuntios and Bessarion on Arabic Philosophy and Science 302

Georgios Steiris

part 4
Oriental Christian Heirs

13 The Syriac Heirs of Neoplatonism 327

John W. Watt

14 The Armenian Reception of Neoplatonism 347

Valentina Calzolari

15 Providence and Fate in Ioane Petritsi’s Commentary on Proclus’ Elements

of Theology 369
Lela Alexidze
contents ix

16 The Christian Arabic (Melkite) Reception of the Neoplatonic Doctrine

of Evil 381
Peter Tarras

part 5
Western Christian Heirs

17 Reading Theophrastus’ Mind: Marsilio Ficino’s Reception of Priscian

of Lydia 417
Anna Corrias

18 Michael of Ephesus and Robert Grosseteste: Neoplatonic Tradition and

Epistemological Rupture 438
Georgios Arabatzis

19 Proclus’ Reception in the Sixteenth Century: Commentary on the First

Book of Euclid’s Elements 459
Jesús de Garay

part 6
Jewish and Muslim Heirs

20 Jewish Neoplatonism 483

Adam Afterman and Omer Michaelis

21 Mysticism in the Islamicate World: The Question of Neoplatonic

Influence in Sufi Thought 513
Milad Milani

Index of Modern Authors 545

Index of Subjects and Places 546
Index of Historical Figures 548
Preface

This is the second volume (the first was volume 18 in the tsec series) of our
foray into the Platonic philosophy of late antiquity, but in this case, we delve
further into the later monotheistic traditions of the Byzantine, Latin, Oriental
Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worlds. It began with a conference at Macquarie
University on Byzantine Neoplatonism in November 2018, which was followed
by a workshop on The Historical Aspects of Defining Byzantine Philosophy
in March 2020, a couple of weeks before emergency measures began to be
imposed both in Australia and across the world in response to the Covid-19
pandemic. Both events were supported by the Australian Research Council (in
the context of Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides’ Future Fellowship Award, 2017–2021,
ft160100453), a Macquarie University Faculty of Arts Themed Research Grant,
and the Australasian Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. The editors
would like to thank all three institutions as well as Hugo Branley for compiling
the indices.

We have been fortunate to supplement the original line up of speakers with a

range of additional papers. Some contributors have chosen to concentrate on
individual figures, while others have taken a broader view of a particular topic,
then again others have concentrated on the history of reception. Whatever
form they have chosen for their contribution we believe that each adds to the
rationale of the volume in presenting a broad spectrum showing the geograph-
ical and community spread of the late Platonic tradition. If ever there was a
philosophy without borders it was surely what we know today as Neoplaton-
ism.

The editors
Macquarie University
Notes on Contributors

Vassilis Adrahtas
teaches Islamic Studies at Western Sydney University and has taught at various
other universities in Greece and Australia. He specialises in Early Christian-
ity, Patristic Studies, Byzantine Philosophy, Islamic Studies, and Indigenous
Australian Religions. Apart from a substantial number of articles in academic
journals, numerous chapters in collective volumes, he has authored and/or
edited more than ten books. His most recent publication, co-edited with Milad
Milani, is Islam, Civility and Political Culture (2021).

Adam Afterman
is a full professor at the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud, Tel
Aviv University. He researches and publishes in the fields of Jewish Mysti-
cism, Kabbalah, and Medieval Jewish Philosophy. He is the author of “And
They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism (2016)
and recently contributed to The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology
(2020).

Lela Alexidze
is Professor of History of Philosophy (Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance),
Institute for Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State
University, Georgia. She is the author of books and articles on Neoplatonism
(Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Damascius), philosophical aspects of
Greek patristics, Byzantine philosophy (Michael Psellos, Nicholas of Methone,
Georgios Gemistos Plethon), Georgian medieval reception of ancient Greek
philosophy, and Ioane Petritsi’s philosophy. She has translated selected texts
from Pre-Socratics, Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus into Georgian,
and Petritsi’s commentary on Proclus’Elements of Theology from Georgian into
German (together with Lutz Bergemann).

Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides
is Associate Professor, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie Uni-
versity, Sydney. She leads an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on
‘Crises of leadership in the Eastern Roman Empire (250–1000 ce)’. Her research
focuses on the use of mythic and religious motifs and metaphors in the Hel-
lenistic and Augustan periods, as well as the reception of Greek philosophy in
Christianity. She is the author of Eros and Ritual (2005, 2013) and Models of
Kingship (2017). She has just completed a monograph on The History of Inebri-
notes on contributors xiii

ation from Plato to Landino and is working on another book on Sexuality in

Greek Epigrams and Later European Literature.

Georgios Arabatzis
is Professor of Byzantine Philosophy at the National and Kapodistrian Uni-
versity of Athens. He studied philosophy at the École de Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales in Paris, and worked at the Research Centre on Greek Philo-
sophy of the Academy of Athens. He has been a Visiting Scholar-Research
Fellow at Princeton University, the University of Texas at Austin, the Uni-
versity of Helsinki, the University Charles in Prague, and the University of
Jassy, Romania. Among his publications are Byzantine Philosophy and Icono-
logy (2012 in Greek), and Anti-humanisme et discours institutionnel à Byzance:
le cas Kekaumenos (2021).

Han Baltussen
is the W.W. Hughes Professor of Classics at the University of Adelaide. His
research focuses on significant topics in intellectual history and philosophy.
He is the author of Theophrastus Against the Presocratics and Plato (2000),
Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius (2008), and The Peripatetics (2016), editor
of Greek and Roman Consolations (2013), and co-editor of Philosophy, Science
and Exegesis in Greek, Latin, and Arabic Commentaries (2004), The Art of Veiled
Speech (2015). He recently contributed to The Blackwell Companion to Late
Antique Literature (2018) and is preparing a new Loeb edition of Eunapius’Lives
of Philosophers and Sophists.

Valentina Calzolari
is Professor of Armenian Studies at the University of Geneva and correspond-
ing member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. She is the
author of Apocrypha Armeniaca (2017), Les apôtres Thaddée et Barthélemy
(2011), The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Armenian (2022), and (co-)editor
of several volumes, including Armenian Philology in the Modern Era (2014) and
L’œuvre de David l’Invincible et la transmission de la pensée grecque dans la tra-
dition arménienne et syriaque (2009). She specialises in late antique Armenian
literature, with a particular interest in the transmission and reception of the
Greek heritage in Armenia.

Michael Champion
is Associate Professor in Late Antique and Early Christian Studies at the Aus-
tralian Catholic University’s Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry. He is
the author of Explaining the Cosmos: Creation and Cultural Interaction in Late-
xiv notes on contributors

Antique Gaza (2014) and Dorotheus of Gaza and Ascetic Education (2022). He
has co-edited The Intellectual World of Christian Late Antiquity (with Lewis
Ayres and Matthew Crawford; Cambridge, forthcoming) and volumes in the
History of Emotions and History of Violence.

Anna Corrias
is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Divinity, University
of Cambridge, working on the reception of late ancient Platonism in the early
modern period. Her interests lie in the history of Platonism and Platonic schol-
arship, ancient theories of the soul, and philosophical translations. She is the
author of The Renaissance of Plotinus: The Soul and Human Nature in Marsilio
Ficino’s Commentary on the Enneads (2020), the co-editor of different collec-
ted volumes, including the newly published Harmony and Contrast: Plato and
Aristotle in the Early Modern Period (2021), and of several articles.

Jesús de Garay
is Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Department of Philosophy, Logic
and Philosophy of Science, University of Seville, Spain. He researches and pub-
lishes on Late Antiquity, Aristotelianism, and Neoplatonism. He is the author
of Aristotelismo (2007). He has recently published in English ‘The Reception of
Proclus: From Byzantium to the West (an Overview)’ in Byzantine Perspectives
on Neoplatonism (2017); ‘Mystery Religions and Philosophy in Proclus’ in Greek
Philosophy and Mystery Religions (2016); ‘Difference and Negation. Plato’s Soph-
ist in Proclus’ in Plato’s “Sophist” revisited (2013).

Omer Michaelis
is Senior Lecturer at Tel Aviv University’s department of Jewish Philosophy
and Talmud. Specialising in medieval Jewish thought and philosophy in the
Islamicate world, he focuses on the dynamics of production, transmission, and
integration of knowledge in medieval Judaism, and its intersection with paral-
lel processes in the Islamic culture. He is the author of the forthcoming Crisis
Discourse and the Dynamics of Tradition in Maimonides’ Oeuvre (2022).

Milad Milani
is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Western Sydney University. He special-
ises in the study of Sufism and Islam through a comparative religious studies
lens. His research draws on Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, paying
special attention to how historical religion is understood in present-day think-
ing about religion. He is the author of The Nature of Sufism: An Ontological
Reading of the Mystical in Islam (2021), Sufi Political Thought (2018), and Sufism
notes on contributors xv

in the Secret History of Persia (2014), as well as co-editing with Vassilis Adrahtas,
Islam, Civility and Political Culture (2021).

Graeme Miles
is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Tasmania. He researches
Greek literature (especially of the Roman Era) and philosophy (especially the
Platonic tradition). He is the author of Philostratus: Interpreters and Interpret-
ation (2018). With Dirk Baltzly and John F. Finamore he is currently producing
the first English translation of Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Republic, the
second volume of which is due to appear in 2022. He is also currently com-
pleting with Han Baltussen a new Loeb of Philostratus’Lives of the Sophists and
Eunapius’ Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists.

Ken Parry
is Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Department of History and Archaeology,
Macquarie University, Sydney. He researches and publishes in the fields of
Late Antiquity, Byzantines Studies, and Eastern Christianity. He is the author
of Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth
Centuries (1996), and editor of The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity
(1999), The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity (2007), and The Wiley
Blackwell Companion to Patristics (2015). He recently contributed to The Cam-
bridge Intellectual History of Byzantium (2017), Brill’s A Companion to Byzantine
Iconoclasm (2021), and is editing Brill’s Companion to John of Damascus (forth-
coming).

Ilaria Ramelli
Professor Ramelli, FRHistS, holds two ma s, a PhD, a Postdoc, and Habilita-
tions to Ordinarius. She has been Professor of Roman History, Senior Visiting
Professor (Harvard; Boston U.; Columbia; Erfurt), Full Professor of Theology
and Endowed Chair (Angelicum), and Senior Fellow (Durham, twice; Prin-
ceton, 2017–; Sacred Heart U., 1998–; Corpus Christi; Christ Church, Oxford).
She is also Professor of Theology and Patristics (Durham, Hon.; kul) and
Senior Fellow/Member (mwk; Bonn U. elect; Cambridge U.). Recent books
include Apokatastasis (2013), Social Justice (2016), Patterns of Women’s Lead-
ership (2021), Eriugena’s Christian Neoplatonism (2021) and Lovers of the Soul
(2022).

Dionysios Skliris
holds a doctorate from the University of Paris iv-Sorbonne, and Masters in Late
Antique and Byzantine Studies from the University of London, and in Byz-
xvi notes on contributors

antine Literature from the University of Paris iv-Sorbonne. He is currently a

Teaching Fellow at the Hellenic Open University. He has published On the Road
to Being: Saint Maximus the Confessor’s Syn-odical Ontology (2018) and Logos–
Mode–Telos: A Study in the Thought of Saint Maximus the Confessor (2018, in
Greek). He is also the editor of the volume Slavoj Žižek and Christianity (2018).

Georgios Steiris
is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy at the Department of
Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He pre-
viously taught at the University of Peloponnese and the Hellenic Open Uni-
versity. He has been Visiting Professor at Jyväskylä University, Finland. He has
served as Secretary General of the Greek Philosophical Society (2015–2016) and
was awarded the Golden Jubilee Medal “80 years of Al-Farabi Kazakh National
University”. He co-edited the volumes Maximus the Confessor as a European
Philosopher (2017) and The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite (2022).

Harold Tarrant
is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Newcastle, Australia, but
now lives in the UK. With K.R. Jackson and K. Lycos, he translated Olympi-
odorus, Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias (1998) and has written several articles
on Olympiodorus. Other publications include: The Platonic Alcibiades: The
Dialogue and its Ancient Reception (2015), co-authored with F. Renaud; two
volumes of an English translation of Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus
(2007, 2017); and, edited with D.A. Layne, D. Baltzly and F. Renaud, Brill’s Com-
panion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity (2018).

Peter Tarras
teaches Judaic Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and
is Research Assistant at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg. He is
completing a PhD supervised by Peter Adamson, which focuses on the Muslim
philosopher al-Fārābī and his eschatological notion of evil. His research inter-
ests include Arabic philosophy (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim), the Arabic
Bible, the cultural history of Christian and Jewish communities in the wana
region, as well as manuscript studies. He is co-editor of the Arabic and Latin
Glossary (online) and co-editing a volume with Florian Jäckel on Free Will in
Christian Arabic Thought.

Michele Trizio
is Associate Professor, Department of Humanities, University of Bari, Italy. He
researches and publishes in the field of Byzantine Studies. He is the author of
notes on contributors xvii

Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio di Nicea (2016), and the editor of Byzantine Theo-

logy and its Philosophical Background (2012), Theologica Minora. The Minor
Genres of Byzantine Theological Literature (2013) and Byzantine Hagiography:
Texts, Themes and Projects (2019). He is also the co-editor of Brill’s Companion
to Byzantine Philosophy (forthcoming).

Dimitrios A. Vasilakis
is a one-year Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, National and Kapod-
istrian University of Athens, Greece. He researches and publishes in the fields of
the history of Neoplatonism, Late Ancient Philosophy and Patristics. He is the
author of Eros in Neoplatonism and its Reception in Christian Philosophy: Explor-
ing Love in Plotinus, Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite (2021). He recently
contributed to Studia Patristica (2017), Proclus and his Legacy (2017), The Inter-
national Journal of the Platonic Tradition (2019), Akropolis (2019), Platonism and
Christian Thought in Late Antiquity (2019), Love—Ancient Perspectives. The Met-
ochi Seminar (2021) and Religions (2021).

John W. Watt
taught for many years at Cardiff University. His research is in Syriac literat-
ure, including Syriac appropriation of Greek philosophy in the late antique and
early Islamic periods. His publications in this field include Aristotelian Rhetoric
in Syriac: Barhebraeus, Butyrum Sapientiae, Book of Rhetoric (2005), Al-Farabi
and the History of the Syriac Organon (2009), and two collections of articles,
Rhetoric and Philosophy from Greek into Syriac (2010) and The Aristotelian Tra-
dition in Syriac (2019). He wrote the entries on Sergius of Reshaina and Jacob
of Edessa for the new ‘Ueberweg’ Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike
(2018).
Introduction

Epigram on Plato and Plutarch

If, perhaps, you should want to release
some of the heathen from your threat, dear Christ,
then choose Plato and Plutarch, for my sake;
for both of them, in their words and also actions,
have clung most tightly to your laws.
And if they did not know you as God of all,
in this case, they only need your benevolence,
that makes you wish to save all men, expecting nothing in return.1
john mauropous (d. c. 1080)

∵
1 A Historical Overview

The title of this volume owes something to John Dillon’s study of the Old
Academy, The Heirs of Plato, in which he looked at the immediate intellectual
legacy of Plato.2 Our collection of papers picks up the story as it developed
in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions from late antiquity to the six-
teenth century. It focuses particular attention on what is known in the modern
world as “Neoplatonism”, the Platonism developed from the time of Plotinus
in the third century, and its impact on the various religious traditions defined
as “monotheistic”.3 Neither of these terms should be considered as mutually
exclusive if they are used in the broad sense of demonstrating a spiritual and
moral outlook based on a belief in a divine world, especially when that divine
world was thought to interact with and transform the world of matter, as in the
case of Iamblichus of Chalcis and John of Damascus (Chap. 7: Parry).4

1 Trans. Bernard and Livanos 2018, 405.

2 Dillon 2013.
3 Whether the adjective “monotheistic” is terminologically distinctive is debatable in view of
its identity within paganism, see Athanassiadi and Frede 1999; also, Mitchell and van Nuffelen
2010.
4 Hence, influenced by the Platonic notion of god’s incorporeality, Christian thinkers emphas-
ised our similarity to God almost exclusively in terms of our intellectual capabilities; however,

© Ken Parry and Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, 2023 | doi

2 introduction

The separation of Neoplatonic philosophy from Christianity and the other

Abrahamic faiths is open to question.5 This model of the relationship between
reason and revelation, often described as philosophy versus theology, persists
because it expresses the default position of some authors in the Western intel-
lectual tradition.6 However, we intend that this volume should contribute to
challenging that model by offering a collection of papers that demonstrates the
engagement with Neoplatonism among intellectuals of the faith communities
they represent.7 Admittedly this engagement may be tenuous at times, nev-
ertheless the default position in question implies that reason must somehow
be suspended or superseded by faith because of their underlying incompatib-
ility, and yet philosophy for practising monotheists in late antiquity and the
middle ages was part of their cultural heritage and identity.8 The Neoplatonists
had their own tradition of revelation embedded in Greek mythology and the
Chaldean Oracles and were not immune to further revelations through the-
urgy.9
In a study published in 2015, John Marenbon examined what he called “the
problem of paganism” in the Western intellectual tradition from Augustine
to Leibniz. He observed that the Eastern Christian, Jewish, and Islamic tradi-
tions had their own version of the problem of paganism and that we lacked
a comparative study. However, as he rightly pointed out, because the theolo-
gical parameters of the problem are different for each one of the monotheistic
traditions, such a study would need to reformulate the question for each of
them.10 He also pointed out that it was only the Latin and Greek traditions that
inherited classical literature as well as philosophy, and that in Byzantium “Hel-
lenism” created an underlying tension which was never resolved satisfactorily.11
Yet the Byzantines were just as much inspired by their admiration for classical
literature as the Latins, and the exercise of self-censorship was less of an issue
in dealing with the pagan tradition than has been claimed. Justinian’s closing

as Wilson 2021 argued, early Christian and Jewish traditions reflected in the Luke-Acts, for
example, clearly relate a non-Platonic understanding of Jesus’ corporeality.
5 See the current European Research Council funded project: NeoplAT: Neoplatonism and
the Abrahamic Traditions; https://www.neoplat.eu/project/; see also the valid points
raised by Demetracopoulos 2020, 479–485.
6 See e.g. Freedman 2003; Nixey 2017.
7 Two further titles came to our attention while preparing this volume, one by Hampton
and Kenney 2019, the other by Pavlos et al. 2019.
8 See e.g. Walbridge 2011; Donato 2013, 172–177.
9 Stoneman 2011.
10 Marenbon 2015, 6.
11 Kaldellis 2007.
introduction 3

of the Academy in Athens (part of the emperor’s wider legislation against non-
Christian ideas and teachings),12 should not be taken to mean further interest
in Neoplatonic philosophy was out of bounds to Christians of the Byzantine
empire.13 There is no reason to doubt the Christian faith of Michael Psellos
(Chap. 8: Champion and Chap. 9: Miles), let alone that of the more radical fig-
ure George Gemistos Plethon (Chap. 11: Baltussen),14 because of their desire
to investigate pagan philosophy and non-Christian traditions in their search
for further knowledge and understanding. In Byzantium it was not a matter
of thinking independently of the church, but rather of understanding past
insights in order to appreciate better the evolution to the present. The so-called
“double truth” theory in no way accounts for monotheists holding to faith-
based and reason-based ideas at the same time when such a distinction is less
than clear.
Jewish interpretations of philosophical history made Pythagoras and Plato
dependent on Moses, with early Christians such as the Alexandrians Clement
(Chap. 1: Anagnostou-Laoutides) and Origen (Chap. 2: Ramelli) joining in this
process of inculturation. This is clear from Origen’s use of the biblical “despoil-
ing the Egyptians” (Exod. 3:22) and Justin Martyr’s claim that Socrates was a
Christian before Christ.15 This gave rise to the notion of “virtuous pagans” and
the possibility of their salvation,16 an idea not unknown to Muslims from the
Qurʾānic ḥanīf, one who was neither Jew nor Christian but adhered to Abra-
hamic monotheism in pre-Islamic Arabia.17 In the second century the physi-
cian and Platonist Galen of Pergamon was prepared to recognise in Christianity
some elements of a “school of philosophy”.18 Jews demonstrated their desire
to engage with ancient wisdom through the Greek translation of their scrip-
tures, known as the Septuagint, which was the shared scripture of early Chris-
tians and became the Old Testament in several churches.19 The Jewish thinker
Philo of Alexandria laid further claim to Greek philosophy by viewing it as a

12 Wildberg 2005.
13 Lankila 2017.
14 See the assessment of Hladký 2014, 189–285. Gemistos adopted the pseudonym Plethon
because of its association with Plato.
15 Justin Martyr, First Apology 46; Second Apology 10 (Schaff et al. 1885). For the afterlife of
Socrates in the Syriac, Arabic, Latin, and Byzantine traditions, see Moore 2019, 435–615.
16 An idea related to the doctrine of apokatastasis, see Ramelli 2013.
17 See the exhaustive discussion of this term by de Blois 2002.
18 Walzer 1949, 15–16. Preserved in an Arabic fragment from Galen’s lost commentary on
Plato’s Republic.
19 On the continuing legend of the Septuagint in the Christian East, see Wasserstein and
Wasserstein 2006, 132–173.
4 introduction

handmaid to revelation that underpinned his faith in the God of Abraham,

and in this he was followed by other Jewish thinkers (Chap. 20: Afterman and
Michaelis). Tertullian’s quip “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”, might
well be answered with “What has Alexandria to do with Baghdad?”.20 All four
places had something to do with each other because of the pervasive culture
of Hellenism throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. A suc-
cession of monotheistic faiths lined up for a bite of the cherry, first Jews, then
Christians and then Muslims. For some within those faiths the taste was bitter
but for others it was sweet.
For Christians in the East philosophy was never far from their theologising.
Their interest in logic and philosophical definitions is well attested, for ex-
ample, by the Syrian Orthodox, George bishop of the Arabs, in the eighth
century (Chap. 13: Watt). He was responsible for translating several works of
Aristotle into Syriac and considered the only thing wrong with philosophy was
those who misappropriated it.21 He was followed slightly later by his fellow Syr-
ian Orthodox, Dawid bar Pawlos, who wrote a poem extolling the virtues of
the Greek philosophers, especially those of Aristotle who surpassed all who
came before and after him.22 However, the Chalcedonian Sophronius of Jer-
usalem in the seventh century was having none of it, for him the Academy,
Stoa, and Lyceum were entirely defunct from a Christian viewpoint.23 Yet his
fellow Chalcedonian John of Damascus (Chap. 6: Adrahtas) in the following
century, was happy to incorporate into his work the traditional Neoplatonic
six definitions of philosophy with little modification.24 These definitions had
a Nachleben among Christians writing in Arabic, such as ʿAbd Īšuʿ ibn Bahrīz
from the Church of the East in the ninth century.25 We find a similar interest
in Neoplatonic philosophy among Christians of the Caucasus whose curation
of certain texts saved them from oblivion, only not just that in the case of the
Armenian David the Invincible (Chap. 14: Calzolari) and the Georgian Ioane
Petritsi (Chap. 15: Alexidze).
We should keep in mind that monotheistic cultures became responsible for
preserving the writings of Neoplatonic philosophers.26 This was true not only

20 See Stroumsa 2015.

21 Miller 1993.
22 Quoted by Brock 1984, 25.
23 Homily 4.2 (Duffy 2020, 105).
24 John of Damascus, Dialectica 3 (Kotter 1969, 56); Elias and David, Introductions to Philo-
sophy (Gertz 2018, 25–29; 103–105). On the Damascene, see K. Parry (ed.) Companion to
John of Damascus, Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World (forthcoming).
25 See Wakelnig 2020.
26 Goulet 2007.
introduction 5

of the Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Armenian Christian cultures, but of the Hebrew
Jewish and Arabic Muslim cultures as well. This resulted in a collection of works
in a diversity of languages the importance of which has become more apparent
thanks to several recent studies.27 Among the Greek manuscripts, for example,
is the so-called “philosophical collection” of the late ninth century containing
works by Plato, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Alcinous, Plotinus, Proclus, Damas-
cius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, and John Philoponus. Olympiodorus was the
last pagan teacher at the school of Alexandria in the sixth century (Chap. 3:
Tarrant), whose pupils Elias and David may have been (at least in name) Chris-
tians. This corpus of largely Neoplatonic writings appears to have been brought
from Alexandria to Constantinople sometime between the seventh and ninth
centuries, and is associated with Arethas, archbishop of Caesarea, a former
pupil of the patriarch Photios of Constantinople.28 Tracing the manuscript
transmission of Neoplatonic works was the subject of a recent volume edited
by Christina D’Ancona, which has added considerably to our knowledge of the
subject.29
The tenth-century Muslim polymath and bookseller, al-Nadīm, provides
us with a list of works by Neoplatonists and their commentators, translated
into Arabic by Syrian and Arab Christian scholars, as well as Muslim scholars
working in Baghdad.30 These Arabic translations included works by Porphyry,
Themistius, Proclus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, and John Philopo-
nus.31 The picture that emerges from al-Nadīm’s Fihrist is of a thriving industry
of translators promoting Greek philosophy and science on behalf of Islam.
Al-Kindī was at the forefront in the endeavour to find agreement between Neo-
platonic thought and Islamic theology, concluding that the philosopher and
the prophet occupied common ground.32 Al-Fārābī’s interest in Aristotelianism
and the history of philosophy led him to state that the Organon was censored
by Christians, and that it was only in the Islamic world that this work could
be studied openly and fully.33 However, for those who followed the Sufi path
the contribution of Neoplatonism appears more nuanced and less than dir-
ect (Chap. 21: Milani). It was Byzantine Christians (the Rūm) in particular, who

27 See e.g. the extensive chapters in Riedweg et al. 2018, with the review by Demetracopoulos
2020.
28 Cavallo 2007, 155–165. On the commentaries in this collection, see Wilson 1996, 89–135.
29 D’Ancona 2007.
30 The Fihrist of al-Nadīm (Dodge 1970, 2.571–633).
31 See Badawi 1968; Peters 1968; Gutas 1998; and more recently Rudolph et al. 2017.
32 Adamson 2005, 32–51.
33 Rosenthal 1975, 50–51. Al-Nadīm in his Fihrist offers a similar history of Christian censor-
ship (Dodge 1970, 2.579).
6 introduction

were given short shrift on the question of who the real inheritors of Hellenism
were now that Islam had arrived on the scene. For the polemicist al-Jāḥiẓ, the
Byzantines had claimed the ancient Greeks as their own but had done nothing
to advance themselves in either philosophy or science.34
In Byzantium the commentarial tradition of the Neoplatonists continued
with Michael of Ephesus (Chap. 18: Arabatzis) and Eustratius of Nicaea in
the twelfth century, with Eustratius’ commentary on the Nicomachean Eth-
ics being translated into Latin a century later by Robert Gosseteste.35 In the
final year of the empire scholars began to engage with Arabic philosophy
through translations of the Latin schoolmen (Chap. 12: Steiris). The appear-
ance of further Neoplatonic works in Latin translations in the sixteenth century
created a fresh wave of interest in the West (Chap. 19: de Garay).36 The Neo-
platonic commentaries were in many cases transcripts of lectures delivered
in the classroom, “ἀπό φωνῆς”, oral lectures transcribed and edited under the
name of a particular teacher. The designation “commentators” gave them a
bad name in terms of their contribution to the philosophical tradition because
they were thought to have contributed nothing original. However, this percep-
tion is hardly sustainable when their works are examined and evaluated more
closely.37 Much like patristic authors writing commentaries on books of the
bible, the commentators brought more to their task than merely exegeting a
difficult passage or making a philological point. They were in fact updating
answers to age-old and on-going philosophical questions and were heirs to a
long tradition of expounding the texts of Plato and Aristotle.38 It was not that
the Neoplatonic commentators lacked originality and independent thinking;
the purpose of their commentaries was to elucidate texts for a new genera-
tion of students seeking enlightenment. They were followed in this by readers
from “outside” the pagan tradition who were curious to know what they had
said.
Proclus was undoubtedly the most influential of the Neoplatonists after Plo-
tinus. He was not only a commentator of Plato but a system builder in his
own right, as can be seen from his Elements of Theology and Platonic Theo-
logy,39 while other works such as the tria opuscula, demonstrate his concern

34 El Cheikh 2004, 103–104.

35 On Eustratius in later Byzantium, see Trizio 2012.
36 Known as the Corpus Latinorum commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum [clcag].
37 See Sorabji 2005, and the translated volumes from the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca
[cag] in the aca series under the general editorship of Richard Sorabji.
38 On this earlier tradition, see Sharples 2010; Baltussen 2016; Boys-Stones 2018.
39 See Dodds 1963 for The Elements of Theology.
introduction 7

with the question of fate and the problem of evil.40 These works display his
intellectual creativity under imperial pressure to leave Athens and were influ-
ential on the thought of his pseudonymous Christian admirer, Dionysius the
Areopagite (Chap. 4: Vasilakis). Dionysius in turn motivated Maximus the Con-
fessor (Chap. 5: Skliris), and as in the case with Dionysius’ Latin contemporary
Boethius, the question of the relation of Neoplatonism to his Christianity is one
of subtle coexistence.41 Neoplatonism offered Christian thinkers an intellectual
framework within which to pursue their metaphysical thinking, with the end
goal being union with God as revealed to them in their scriptures. The crisis
over hesychasm in Byzantium in the fourteenth century was focused on the
criticism of Barlaam the Calabrian on the very nature of that union (Chap. 10:
Trizio). For both Neoplatonists and Christians the summun bonum of their
asceticism and intellectual activity was assimilation to the divine, whether con-
ceived as an impersonal One or as a personal God. They were assisted in this
through participation in the rites of theurgy and liturgy, the performance of
which enhanced their fundamental belief in divine providence.
We have become used to thinking of ancient philosophy as a way of life,42
but Christians, Jews and Muslims all had a way of life of their own. The life-
styles of these four traditions promoted a path of virtue and goodness to be
followed even though each operated under different divine auspices. Christi-
ans took a successionist view of Jews, while Muslims took a successionist view
of both Jews and Christians,43 with each believing it possessed the authentic
religion of Abraham. The relationship between the three faiths was the subject
of an initial study by the Jewish philosopher, Saʿd ibn Manṣūr ibn Kammūna,
in thirteenth-century Baghdad.44 The Neoplatonists maintained their creden-
tials by considering themselves the true heirs of the divine Plato. Diogenes
Laertius cites several sources telling of the virgin birth of Plato and his lin-
eage from the god Apollo in his life of the philosopher,45 while Plutarch of
Chaeronea and his sympotic companions discussed the matter of his birth-
day and Apollonian parentage in his Quaestiones Convivales.46 Porphyry in his

40 For discussion, see Parry 2017. The tria opuscula has been translated by Jan Opsomer and
Carlos Steel in the aca series.
41 Constas 2017.
42 Hardot 2015.
43 On the Muslim notion of taḥrīf or the corruption of earlier scriptures by Jews and Chris-
tians, see Toenies Keating 2014.
44 He was hounded out of Baghdad because of his opinions on certain aspects of the Islamic
faith, see Perlmann 1971.
45 Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (Mensch 2018, 134).
46 Moralia, ix, bk. viii (Minar 1961, 110–119).
8 introduction

Life of Plotinus and Marinus in his Life of Proclus, report the philosophers
feasting with their friends on the birthdays of Plato and Socrates, no doubt
with statues of their heroes looking on.47 The Neoplatonist Isidore is said to
have worshipped as divine Pythagoras and Plato believing them to dwell in the
super-celestial realms.48
The Neoplatonists are often left out of discussion of textual communities in
late antiquity,49 but they deserve to be included alongside Jews, Christians, and
Muslims.50 The curriculum developed in the Neoplatonic schools prescribed a
certain order for reading Plato’s works, with advanced students tackling the
Timaeus and Parmenides.51 What Iamblichus did for the corpus of Platonic
texts to be studied by Neoplatonists, Athanasius did for the canon of biblical
books to be read by Christians.52 In addition, the logical works of Aristotle were
introduced, most notably by Porphyry through his Isagoge, which was part of a
wider agenda to harmonise Aristotle with Plato.53 This enterprise was not about
making the philosophy of Aristotle identical with that of Plato, but studying the
two together to benefit the task of philosophy to instil greater discernment.
It was perhaps above all a pedagogical tool that transformed Aristotle into a
teacher and guide to the wisdom of Plato. This transformation of the Neopla-
tonic Aristotle in the Arab Muslim world resulted in the Theology of Aristotle,
based in fact on sections of Plotinus’ Enneads complied by a Syrian Orthodox
Christian, ibn Nāʿima al-Ḥimṣī.54 The Arabic Book of Pure Good, known to the
Latins as the Liber de causis, was another work attributed to Aristotle but owing
much to Proclus’ Elements of Theology.55
In the Latin West authors of the early period such as Calcidius, probably a
Christian of the fourth century, wrote a commentary on Plato’s Timaeus,56 and
Boethius in the sixth century, in addition to his Consolation of Philosophy, wrote
commentaries on the Porphyrian logic tradition. Augustine considered the Pla-

47 Neoplatonic Saints (Edwards 2000, 4–5; 94).

48 Damascius, The Philosophical History (Athanassiadi 1999, 113).
49 Batlzly 2014.
50 The Manichaeans are left out more than the Neoplatonists, and yet they were a textual
community on a par with the others, studying the canon of Mani’s scriptures in a variety
of languages, see Gardner and Lieu 2004, 151–175.
51 Tarrant 2014.
52 See his 39th Festal Letter of 367 (Payne-Smith 1892).
53 On the harmonising enterprise, see Karamanolis 2006; Gerson 2006: Hadot 2015.
54 Adamson 2002. Ibn Nāʿima al-Ḥimṣī is mentioned by al-Nadīm in his Fihrist (Dodge 1970,
2. 587, 601, 603). See Tarras’ chapter below on the question of his church affiliation.
55 Calma 2019–2021.
56 Ed. and trans., Magee 2016.
introduction 9

tonists nearest to the Christians in their thinking,57 and Alcuin of York in the
eighth century gave Neoplatonic logic a place in Christian theology in his De
vera philosophia and De dialectica. John Scottus Eriugena in the ninth century
translated the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, as well as authoring the
Periphyseon, a work that embodied his admiration for Neoplatonic and Greek
patristic thought. These authors laid the foundations for subsequent philo-
sophical developments in the West, culminating in the engagement with John
of Damascus and Arabic Aristotelian philosophy in the thirteenth century. John
of Damascus may have been called the last of the Greek fathers in the West,
but in the East he was Yuḥannā ibn Sarjūn ibn Mansūr, father to the next gen-
eration of Chalcedonians (Melkites) writing in Arabic (Chap. 16: Tarras).58 By
the time Thomas Aquinas composed his commentary on the Liber de causis
he was aware of Proclus’ writings through the translations of William of Moer-
beke.59 In the fifteenth century Neoplatonism reasserted itself in the thought
of Marsilio Ficino (Chap. 17: Correas) and Nicholas of Cusa. The latter, like his
earlier Jewish counterpart ibn Kammūna, tried his hand at a comparative study
of the Abrahamic traditions in the wake of the fall of Constantinople to the
Ottoman Turks.60 None of the pagan philosophers of late antiquity could have
foreseen their brand of Platonism creating a forum for inter-religious debate
among the major monotheistic faiths, and would no doubt have been aston-
ished that it had done so.

2 The Papers in This Volume—A Synopsis

Having identified above the intellectual debates to which the papers in the cur-
rent volume contribute, we also offer here a summary of the papers themselves
to illustrate their chronological and thematic links.
In the first part of our volume, papers are preoccupied with the ways Clem-
ent of Alexandria and his student, Origen, adapted characteristically Platonic
practices, such as silent meditation and the famous Socratic elenchos; by closely
reflecting Plotinus’ approach to these practices, Clement and Origen actively
engaged with the Middle Platonic thought of their times and provided influen-

57 City of God, bk. 8.5 (Bettenson 1972, 304–305). Although he appears to have repudiated this
in his Retractions (Bogan 1968, 10).
58 Griffith 2008, 40–42.
59 Guagliardo 1996.
60 Hopkins 1990.
10 introduction

tial avenues for the constant reworking of Platonic principles in the Christian
dogma and the definition of the Christian consciousness.
In Chapter 1, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides discusses the reception of Socratic
silent meditation, as introduced across the Platonic dialogues, but especially in
the Phaedo, by Plotinus, the so-called founder of Neoplatonism and Clement of
Alexandria. Thus, the paper maps out the early reception of the Phaedo among
pagan and Christian intellectual circles, probably influenced by Numenius,
with emphasis on the concept of silence, as a more advanced stage of spir-
itual/intellectual progress, during which we are asked to attune ourselves to
the divine. At this stage, music is associated with temptation, and harmony
with silent reflection, a concept that agrees with the common (Neo)platonic,
Gnostic, and Christian view that profound truths must be protected by silence
to be revealed to the few worthy ones. Thus, Clement defends Christian tran-
scendence by systematically appropriating (Neo)platonic concepts which he
invests with the notion of faith.
In Chapter 2, Ilaria Ramelli focuses on Origen’s application of philosophical
enquiry to scripture, which parallels Plotinus’ defence of the dialectic method.
Origen relates his philosophical theology to the notion that God has instilled
in us a love for heavenly truths which we can approximate through analo-
gies, provided their application to Scripture is guided by Christ-Logos. This
concept reflects Atticus’ belief in the rational soul of Christ-Logos which medi-
ates between God and the World and subsequently inspired Eriugena. In fact,
Eriugena’s Periphyseon was modelled in large part on Origen’s On the First Prin-
ciples. The emphasis of Origen’s zetetic masterpiece on the Christian Trinity
corresponds to the three principal hypostases of Plotinus, although it deals
with distinctly Christian questions such as the incarnation (cf. Skliris in this
volume), while Origen’s contribution in defining hypostasis probably influ-
enced the way Porphyry read Plotinus’ archai as hypostaseis.
The second part of the volume comprises five papers that shed light on the
continuous relevance of the Neoplatonic tradition in late antiquity and the
early Byzantine period. While pagan philosophers must navigate the sensitiv-
ities of the ever-growing Christian population and their leaders, their insights
continue to be adapted by later theologians who must grapple with dogmatic
issues such as the role of evil in history. The last two papers in this section focus
on John Damascene discussing his particular use of Neoplatonic mystic lan-
guage which aims at defending the role of Christ in history, and his influential
support of the role of icons in Christian worship in response to the iconoclastic
debate of the eighth century.
In Chapter 3 Harold Tarrant claims that Olympiodorus develops a critical
stance toward the cursory acceptance of Platonic myths. Unlike Proclus who
introduction 11

sought literal truths in myths, Olympiodorus held that myths were false ac-
counts mirroring a truth, a view that affects his understanding of the soul’s
postmortem journey as related in the Phaedo. Regarding the transmigration of
souls, Olympiodorus prefers the term metensomatosis since it is the soul that
hosts many bodies, not the opposite. Tarrant re-examines Westerink’s trans-
lation of In Phaedonem 9.6 which amounts to Olympiodorus’ (and perhaps
Plato’s) rejection of transmigration, explained as the recorder’s misunderstand-
ing. In Tarrant’s view, Olympiodorus does not deny metempsychosis but makes
a point here about the irrational soul, which will be destroyed despite engaging
in metempsychosis. Olympiodorus’ argument was subtle to avoid controversy
in Christian Alexandria, and thus the recorder missed the point.
Chapter 4 explores Plato’s preference for dialectic enquiry, as a way of avoid-
ing dogmatism and inviting the audience to engage with philosophical invest-
igation. Dimitrios Vasilakis focuses on pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and
the Platonic character of his writing style. In agreement with Golitzin (and
against the Tübingen school of Platonic interpretation) Vasilakis argues that
Dionysius, like Plato, uses mystic language not to exclude readers from the doc-
trine but as a strategy to underline the importance of his teachings. Readers
who can perceive the similarities between Dionysius and Proclean theses, can
also figure out their dissimilarities, by applying the technique of “dissimilar
similarity” which pseudo-Dionysius encounters in Scripture. In fact, Vasilakis
argues, Dionysius probably challenges his readers to pass from a stage of dis-
similar similarity to that of similar dissimilarity, in which they can appreciate
the differences of the Christian dogma.
In Chapter 5 Dionysios Skliris discusses the problem of a unique God that
can be simultaneously transcendent and participated in. In response, Neopla-
tonists and Christian theologians alike relied on the notion of Logos which is
present in the logoi of beings. Under the influence of Proclus, probably through
pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor further argued that the
human body participates immediately in the divine; hence the divine Logos,
identified with Christ, is connected to incarnation. God is approachable only
through his Son, who cooperates with the Spirit to bring the world to its telos.
Here Maximus must also resolve the issue of evil and its presence in history;
adopting the Platonic notion of parhypostasis, Maximus denies the existence
of evil which has no logos and is thus reduced to a temporary failure to realise
one’s nature, as determined by God.
In Chapter 6 Vassilis Adrahtas discusses the unusual position of John Dam-
ascene, a Melkite, in Byzantine Neoplatonism. Although we lack a system-
atic study of John’s Neoplatonic influences, the impact of pseudo-Dionysius,
through John of Scythopolis, on the Damascene is widely accepted. Making
12 introduction

a distinction between Neoplatonic and Neoplatonistic philosophy Adrahtas

argues that the latter allowed for the adaptation of Neoplatonic modalities
in Christianity. John develops a radical version of Neoplatonistic interpret-
ation, anticipated by Leontius of Byzantium, Theodore of Raithu, Maximus
the Confessor, and Anastasius of Sinai. Adrahtas outlines two Neoplatonistic
modes, one preoccupied with Aristotelian logic and one focusing on Neopla-
tonic hierophanic language. John employs the first mode when interpreting the
term enhypostaton; the second mode is pervasive in his understanding of our
experience of God although John insists on using mystic language to argue for
a Christ-based history.
In Chapter 7 Ken Parry compares Neoplatonic and Christian Byzantine atti-
tudes to cult images, especially given the Christian rejection of Neoplatonic
rituals. Despite acknowledging the lower-order nature of images, Iamblichus
reacted to Porphyry’s undermining of the role of statues in theurgy, while the
Damascene responded to the iconoclastic excision of images from Christian
practice. The issue of icon worship was voiced early on by Eusebius, Irenaeus,
Athenagoras, and Tertullian. The key problem was to what degree images rep-
resented the divinity of those depicted, especially Christ, with John Damascene
adopting a view akin to the Neoplatonic theory of divine names, adapted by
pseudo-Dionysius. Aware of the common debates on art’s inability to portray
the illumination of divine experience, Iamblichus and John Damascene defend
the anagogic character of images and the place of matter in achieving this,
while the Damascene distinguishes between worship of God and the vener-
ation of images.
In the third part of the volume, we move chronologically to late Byzantium:
here, two papers discuss the reception of the Platonic notion of becoming god-
like in Michael Psellos, while one focuses on Barlaam and his profile as a Neo-
platonic philosopher in the context of the hesychast debate. Two more papers
shift our attention to Plethon Gemistos, examining respectively his promotion
of Platonic studies in the face of the Aristotelianism that dominated his period,
and his familiarity with Arab philosophers.
In Chapter 8 Michael Champion re-examines the relationship between rhet-
oric and philosophy in the works of Michael Psellos. Centring on Plato’s defin-
ition of the goal of philosophy as “becoming godlike,” discussed in the Timaeus
and the Republic, Psellos puts forward a revised understanding of the role of
rhetoric which enables us to approach godlikeness. Psellos employs the Neopla-
tonic hierarchy of virtues, arguing that ascending the scale of virtues achieves
progressive assimilation to God. Although Plato rejects the sophistic use of
rhetoric, Psellos believes that its proper use enables humans to perfect their
political virtues as in the cases of the jurist Xiphilinos and Patriarch Leichoudes
introduction 13

who are praised for their philosophical engagement with rhetoric. Importantly,
sublime rhetoric can lead us to revelatory experiences, like Gregory Nazianzus
whose rhetoric achieves spiritual elevation by allegorising history thus turning
it into theoretic vision.
In Chapter 9 Graeme Miles also treats Psellos’ reaction to the ideal of god-
likeness in the Platonic corpus. Drawing on Proclus’ Elements of Theology and
Plato’s Phaedrus, Psellos argues that the human soul acts as an intermediary
enabling thus our moral improvement. In Theologica 2.4 and 2.5 Psellos com-
ments on God’s creation of man in his “image and likeness” in Genesis 1:26.
According to Psellos, humans are composite beings who can achieve likeness
only if they achieve virtue. Employing Porphyry’s Neoplatonic scale of vir-
tues alongside Climacus’ ladder of virtues, Psellos disagrees with Origen’s view
that humans can only aspire to achieve likeness with the Son. Being the most
mimetic animals, humans can debate Jesus’ admonition to be like a serpent
(Matt 10:16) and like a dove (2Macc 7:1–41) and thus achieve a certain level of
godlikeness vis-à-vis all members of the Trinity.
In Chapter 10, Michele Trizio evaluates Barlaam’s profile as a radical Neo-
platonist rather than anti-Platonist, as the hesychasts claimed. Barlaam is a
fervent supporter of Socratic ignorance, a stance he adopts in the Filioque
debate. Therefore, in his Prayer he seeks purification from ignorance. Equally,
Barlaam accuses the hesychasts of relying on the body to perfect the soul, and of
committing “double ignorance” by being confident in their error. Furthermore,
Barlaam understands the experience of the divine light as a form of purification
for the soul before acquiring knowledge. However, he criticises the monastic
notion of nepsis (vigilance) as passive and inadequate, when not accompan-
ied by secular learning. Although Barlaam’s On Human Perfection is lost, the
excerpt that survives in Palamas indicates that Barlaam adopted a Platonic
viewpoint of defending philosophy as the only way to achieve assimilation to
God.
In Chapter 11 Han Baltussen re-evaluates Plethon’s De Differentiis and its
anti-Aristotelian character. Although the polemical character of the treatise
would classify him as anti-Aristotelian, Plethon admits that he finds Aristotle
useful and does not always endorse Plato’s theories. However, he genuinely
thinks that a number of Aristotelian theses are incompatible with Christianity;
blaming Avicenna for the dominance of Aristotelianism, Plethon exaggerates
the polemical character of his work. Despite mentioning Simplicius by name,
Plethon did not attempt to harmonise the views of Plato and Aristotle like him.
Still, his determination to defend Plato’s truth as more compatible with the
Christian dogma, against the majority of Italian intellectuals and in light of the
criticism he faced from Scholarios and Trapezuntios, can be seen as an attempt
14 introduction

to improve the balance between Aristotelianism and Platonism on the verge of

the Italian Renaissance.
In Chapter 12 Georgios Steiris reviews the reception of Arabic philosoph-
ical thought in late Byzantium. After summarising his past research on the
interaction of Plethon and Scholarios with Arabic philosophy, he focuses on
Trapezuntios and Bessarion. Overall, Greek thinkers systematically underrated
Arab philosophers and used them mostly in their disputes with one another.
Thus, Plethon claimed that Arab thinkers had misinterpreted Greek philosophy
while his arch enemy Scholarios treats them as heretics. Equally, Trapezuntios
had a superficial knowledge of Arabic philosophy and science, as evident in
his commentary of Prolemy’s Algamest. A fervent opponent of Platonism,
Trapezuntios accused Averroes of misunderstanding Aristotle, while he per-
ceived Avicenna as a faithful Platonist. Bessarion, Plethon’s pupil, tried to bal-
ance out Trapezuntios’ rejection of Plato. Yet, he appears to be quoting Aver-
roes, he likely reproduces the views of Thomas De Wylton and Duns Scotus on
Averroes.
Following our introduction in the previous section to the interest, albeit
superficial, of Byzantine thinkers in the Arab heirs of Aristotle, Section 4 dis-
cusses the reception of Neoplatonism among Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, and
Arab Christians. Although once more Aristotle seems to monopolise the atten-
tion of the eastern churches and their intellectual circles, pseudo-Dionysius
Areopagite is often employed as a proxy for Platonic philosophy, while later
Arabic-speaking Chalcedonians revisit the Neoplatonic doctrine of evil which
they try to accommodate in their own cultural context.
In Chapter 13 John Watt examines the reception of Neoplatonism in the
Syriac-speaking Christian world. Syriac thinkers engaged mainly with Aristotle
whom, however, they encountered through the Neoplatonic School of Alexan-
dria; they were also fascinated by the Neoplatonism of pseudo-Dionysius. Both
traditions were introduced by Sergius of Reshaina who found Plato’s concept of
a Demiurge compatible with the Christian notion of God the Creator. Sergius
envisaged pseudo-Dionysius as a guide to the Platonic corpus which was only
comprehensible after studying Aristotle. Later, Phocas of Edessa translated into
Syriac John of Scythopolis’ Scholia on Dionysius which included extant quo-
tations from Plotinus. These were included in Phocas’ edition of Dionysius,
known to members of the Qenneshre monastery where scholarly translations
of Aristotle were produced in the seventh century. The Qenneshre monks influ-
enced Arab Neoplatonism, probably using, like Sergius, the pseudo-Dionysian
corpus rather than Plato.
In Chapter 14 Valentina Calzolari surveys the reception of Neoplatonism in
Christian Armenia, once more stressing the crucial role of the school of Alex-
introduction 15

andria, where David the Invincible had studied under Olympiodorus. Although
little is known about David from ancient sources, Armenian medieval tradi-
tions present him as a saint who used pagan philosophy to defend the positions
of his Church in doctrinal disputes. Calzolari draws attention to the difference
(apart from Timaeus) between the Armenian Platonic corpus and the Platonic
curriculum of the Greek schools, explaining that the translations produced by
the so-called Hellenising School (mainly of Aristotle, Porphyry, David but also
Philo) indicate little interest in Plato. Accordingly, she sides with those who
claim that the Armenian translations of Plato’s Euthyphro, the Apology, Mino,
the Laws, and Timaeus were probably produced in the eleventh century by
Grigor Magistros.
In Chapter 15 Lela Alexidze shifts our focus to Christian Georgia of the
twelfth century, by assessing Ioane Petritsi’s Commentary on Proclus’ Elements
of Theology, especially his understanding of providence and fate. Following
Plotinus and Proclus, Petritsi claims that divine providence controls every-
thing, effecting the harmonious interrelation of beings, while fate has power
only in the corporeal world. Transliterating in Georgian the word heimarmene,
Petritsi claims that providence comes from the supreme One, the cause of
everything, identified with Plato’s Demiurge in the Timaeus. Having created
everything because of its goodness, providence invites everything to revert to
the cause. This reversion is achievable for noncorporeal beings, although acci-
dental events may prevent the fulfilment of providence in the material world.
Notably, souls must drop their corporeal ties to achieve unity in themselves and
elevation to the intelligible world of divine providence.
In Chapter 16 Peter Tarras assesses the Neoplatonic lore of Christian Arab
thinkers, especially the reception of the Neoplatonic doctrine of evil by Arabic-
speaking Chalcedonians. Influenced by John Damascene, Arab Christians ex-
plain evil as privation of good. Hence, Theodore Abū Qurra argued that the
human soul was created free but was compromised through its contact with
matter. His work, preoccupied with God’s justice, does not indicate famili-
arity with Neoplatonic writers but was influential. Next, Tarras discusses the
Arabic adaptation of Plotinus’ Enneads, possibly by al-Ḥimsī, who negotiates
the agency of evil in terms of causation. Tarras uses al-Ḥimsī to discuss the
interventionist approach of Christian Arab translators of patristic sources and
later Melkite translators, such as ibn al-Faḍl and Paul of Antioch, who engaged
with the privative nature of evil to prove that God is not the cause of evil.
Having already noted in Part 3, the dominance of Aristotelianism in the
Christian West, Part 5 traces more systematically the reintroduction of Plato
and his ancient commentators in late medieval and early Renaissance discus-
sions about epistemology by thinkers such as Ficino, Grosseteste, Barozzi, Pic-
colomini, Clavius, Pereira, and others.
16 introduction

In Chapter 17 Anna Corrias discusses Ficino’s engagement with Theo-

phrastus’ Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul (= bks 4 and 5 of Theophrastus’
Physica) which was translated by Priscian of Lydia. Priscian draws on Iamb-
lichus thus rendering Theophrastus’ text noticeably Platonising. The approach
suited Ficino who believed in the convergence of Aristotelian and Platonic
theses; critical of Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle’s views on the human
mind, Ficino used Priscian’s translation of Theophrastus to argue that Aristotle
refers to the active and the passive mind as different stages of epistemological
sophistication, but not different types of intellect. In this process, the imagin-
ation helps the intellect disassociate itself from sensory distractions and focus
on its own thoughts. Here, Ficino subscribes to Plotinus’ view that imagination
enables thoughts to acquire consciousness, adding that Aristotle appreciated
visualising as a key step for acquiring knowledge.
The debate on imagination and visualising knowledge in the thirteen cen-
tury is revisited in Chapter 18. Here Georgios Arabatzis discusses Grosseteste’s
translation of the twelfth century Greek Commentators of the Nicomachean
Ethics, including Michael of Ephesus, comparing their attempts to overcome
the tension between the theoretical and empirical approaches to science. Fol-
lowing Aristotle, Grosseteste believed that the intellect opts for the certainty
of divine things, beyond mathematical laws. This view, although not fully Pla-
tonic, inspired Grosseteste to establish experimental science. Yet, it creates ten-
sion between the intellect and mathematics as pathways to knowledge. To bal-
ance the criticism against Grosseteste’s views, Arabatzis counter-cites further
evaluations of his work, using Bachelard’s concept of epistemological rupture
to explain Michael’s and Grosseteste’s ability to reconcile the division between
imagination and reality, since in the imagination of the mathematician, math-
ematics is a function of reality.
In Chapter 19 Jesús de Garay stresses the importance of Proclus’ Commentary
on the first book of Euclid’s Elements in the sixteenth century debate on whether
mathematics is a science. Drawing on Proclus’ philosophy of mathematics, Pic-
colomini conceded that mathematics is a universal language that conveys true
knowledge of the physical world, a thesis rejected by Barozzi. De Garay revis-
its the Platonic and Pythagorean basis of Proclus’ mathematics, following his
early attempt to reconcile Plato. Yet, Proclus believed that mathematical mod-
els lack the accuracy of the eternal numbers projected on the soul; in this
context, Piccolomini’s work sparked a debate on the relationship between uni-
versal mathematics and metaphysics. For example, Clavius advocated Proclus’
view that mathematics can be used to reach metaphysics, while Pereira con-
cluded that mathematics is not a science since it does not examine the essence
of quantity.
introduction 17

The last two papers of the volume explore the spread of Neoplatonic ideas
among Jewish thinkers from the tenth to the twelfth century and in the Islam-
icate world from the ninth to the thirteenth century, directing us to think how
we approach methodologically the issue of interaction between traditions and
identifying points of contact that we are yet to debate.
In Chapter 20 Adam Afterman and Omer Michaelis explore Jewish Neopla-
tonism by focusing on three Neoplatonic themes. The motif of the descending
axis, referring to the language of emanation, and the motif of the ascending
axis, referring to our “spiritual return” to the divine realm, both linked to Jew-
ish apophaticism, developed by Maimonides. Furthermore, the authors discuss
two sources currently absent from the study of Jewish Neoplatonism: Saadya
Gaon’s Commentary on Sefer Yeṣirah, where Neoplatonic terminology is system-
atised in a novel way, and the long version of the Theology of Aristotle. Probably
relying on a sixth-century Syrian Christian version, the Theology, translated
into Arabic, introduced the Arabic-speaking world to Plotinus’ Enneads. The
work shows familiarity with the esoteric teachings of the Ismāʿīlīs, leading Paul
Fenton to attribute it to Jewish Neoplatonists, also familiar with the Ismāʿīlī
doctrines in tenth-century Egypt.
Finally, in Chapter 21 Milad Milani investigates the ways in which Neoplaton-
ism influenced or rather inspired Sufi thought. Although many Sufis absorbed
popular or commonplace Neoplatonic ideas, there was no conscious borrow-
ing. First, the diverse roots of Sufism correspond to Plotinus’ interest in oriental
wisdom but in such synthetic processes we should rather talk about interface,
not influence. Second, despite sharing the Neoplatonic interest in asceticism
and spiritual illumination, and despite being influenced by Neoplatonic meta-
physics, Muslim thinkers such as al-Arabi, al-Suhawardi, and al-Ghazali were
not conscious of Neoplatonism as such but rather thought that they engaged
with the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions or a combination of these—like
the Neoplatonists themselves. Further, Neoplatonic ideas were typically used
as accusations against each other in internal conflicts between Muslim intel-
lectual sects. Thus, there is no historical correlation between the two traditions.

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 part 1
Early Christian Heirs

∵
 chapter 1

Man before God: Music and Silence as Induction

to Altered States of Consciousness from Plato
to Clement of Alexandria
Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides

1 Introduction

The Platonic processes of achieving altered states of consciousness, that is,

states of perceiving ourselves and the world around us other than a normal
waking state,1 have attracted renewed scholarly interest.2 Such states can be
achieved through frantic dance and wild music (typically associated with Cory-
bantic or Bacchic rituals)3 but also through quiet meditation.4 Socrates’ prac-
tice of silent meditation is twice depicted in the Symposium, both times rather
amusingly: first, when on the way to Agathon’s house, Socrates deviates to
a neighbour’s porch standing there in a fit of abstraction (Symp. 175a7–10)
and second, when Alcibiades relates how he witnessed Socrates’ extraordin-
ary ability to meditate lightly clad in freezing temperatures during the 432 bce
Athenian campaign against Potidaea (Symp. 220c3–d5).5 Often portrayed as
talking to himself,6 or candidly admitting his inner exchanges with his daimo-
nion,7 Socrates’ tendency to withdraw to himself is predictably ridiculed in con-

1 Druckman and Bjork (eds) 1994, 207–208 and Kihlstrom 1984 discussed by Anagnostou-
Laoutides, forthcoming. Altered states of consciousness are often achieved through sleep,
hypnosis, or medication. n.b. Ancient texts and their translations are cited from the Loeb
Classical Library editions, unless otherwise specified. The Bibliography only includes the lcl
volumes whose translations I quote.
2 Geertz 2014; Ustinova 2017; Anagnostou-Laoutides, forthcoming.
3 Ustinova 2017, 117–142; cf. Belfiore 2006.
4 Ustinova 2017, 316–319.
5 Anagnostou-Laoutides 2021a, 261–262; also, see Anagnostou-Laoutides and Payne 2021.
6 See Tht. 189e–190a where Socrates defines thought as the discussion of the soul with itself;
also, Tht. 173e–174a where he admits that only the body of the philosopher lives in the city,
while his mind is carried away to loftier concerns (ἡ δὲ διάνοια … πανταχῇ φέρεται). Also, Frede
1989, 28–31.
7 Pl. Apol. 31c–d; 40a–c; 41c–d; Phdr. 242b–d; Resp. 496c; Tht. 150e–151a; Euthphr. 3b; Alc. i 105e–
106a; Euthyd. 272e–273a; Theag. 128d–129e; and Xen. Mem. 1.1.1–5; Apol. 12–13. See Ustinova
2017, 318–321. Socrates’ daimonion is also discussed by Neoplatonist thinkers: see Plot. Enn.

© Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004

26 anagnostou-laoutides

temporary comedy.8 On a more serious note, Socrates argues in the Phaedrus

that the philosopher ought to develop his judgement through systematic prac-
tice, which inevitably forces him to withdraw from everyday preoccupations
(Phdr. 249d1–4).9 By far the most prominent instance of advocating Socratic
silence, however, is the much-quoted passage from Phaedo (67e), where the life
of the philosopher is defined as a continuous struggle to minimise the influence
of the body on the mind and therefore, as practice for death and its permanent
silence. Thus, my paper examines the notions of harmony and silence in Plato’s
Phaedo and its reception in Plotinus, the so-called founder of Neoplatonism,10
and Clement of Alexandria.
Clement offers a definitive and instructive paradigm of how early Christian
thinkers appropriated classical philosophy, and his attempt to contextualise
Plato and Aristotle in the Judaeo-Christian tradition is contemporary with the
development of Neoplatonic thought.11 In addition, although the Neoplatonic
commentaries on the Phaedo, such as those of Olympiodorus, Damascius, and

3.4(15) and 4.8.(6).8; Porph. vp; Procl. In Alc. i 78.7–85.14; Herm. In Phdr. 67; Olymp. In
Alc. i 3.21. Also, see the relevant discussions in Rist 1963; Addey 2014; Finamore 2014; and
Roskam 2014.
8 Ar. Nub. 227–234 and Pl. Apol. 19c4–7.
9 Text from lcl 36 (Fowler): 482: ἐξιστάμενος δὲ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων καὶ πρὸς τῷ
θείῳ γιγνόμενος, νουθετεῖται μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ὡς παρακινῶν, ἐνθουσιάζων δὲ λέληθεν τοὺς
πολλούς (“becoming detached from human concerns and veering toward the divine, he
is chastised by the many as mad, and although he is inspired, he eludes the many”; my
trans.). See also Resp. 488e1–501a7 with Anagnostou-Laoutides, forthcoming. On Plato’s
advocacy of silent reflection, also see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2021b, 250n3, citing Resp.
604e2–3 (τὸ δὲ φρόνιμον καὶ ἡσύχιον ἦθος); Hipp. Mai. 295a4–5 (εἰ ὀλίγον χρόνον εἰς ἐρημίαν
ἐλθὼν σκεψαίμην πρὸς ἐμαυτόν); Phdr. 229a2–3 (ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ καθιζησόμεθα) with Hunter 2012,
12; cf. Alc. i 106a3 for Socrates following Alcibiades around in silence (σιγῶν εἵπου). For “Pla-
tonic silence” and its reception in Cicero, see De Inv. 1.3 and 1.4 (responding to Plato, Resp.
497a) with Altman 2016, 9, 11 and 275. Plato has been also understood to practice silence
by not engaging with Socrates, in any of his dialogues, an example that Cicero recognised
and emulated; see Atkins 2013, 25; cf. Clay 2000, xi–xiii and Hunter, 2012, 109–110 on Cic.
De Or. 1.231.
10 Gerson 2018, online; yet see Banner 2018, 86 noting that Plotinus probably saw himself as
just a Platonist.
11 Clement’s most famous student (at least according to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.6 =
pg 20,536A), and his successor as the head of the Alexandrian catechetical school, Ori-
gen, had possibly studied under Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus’ teacher; see Ramelli 2017a, 5,
esp. n.17. On Origen’s fascination with Plato, see Ramelli 2017b, 279–280. On Ammonius’
influence by Neopythagorean beliefs regarding the use of symbols as pointers to the path
of wisdom, see Anagnostou-Laoutides 2020a, 88 with n.46 citing Grant 1971, 136–139,
Struck 2004, 102–103 and Rangos 1999, 261–270; cf. Enslin 1954, 222–223 and Grant 1971,
136–139.
man before god 27

Simplicius, were composed considerably later, in the fifth and sixth centur-
ies,12 Plotinus, who was born in Egyptian Lycopolis and travelled to Alexandria
around 232 to study philosophy, was deeply influenced by the dialogue13—
which echoes the interest of his teacher, the Neo-Pythagorean Numenius, in
it.14 It seems, therefore, that there is an earlier chapter in the history of Phaedo’s
reception, in the late second/early third century, during which Socrates’ ideas
about the immortality of the soul and our ability to grasp it are read both by
Christian theologians and pagan philosophers.
My main argument here is twofold: first, we cannot appreciate Platonic
silence without tackling his theory of harmony as another sense-based rep-
resentation of divine truth, which Plato employed extensively in the Republic
(401e; 617b–c) and the Timaeus (36e–37a; 47c; 82b).15 As I have argued else-
where,16 although Plato’s description of the music of the Sirens in the Republic
has been understood as an attempt to antagonise Homer by offering a posit-
ive spin on the deadly Odyssean Sirens,17 Plato seems to reiterate Homer by
arguing that the true philosopher will ignore the Sirens; thus, Er observes that
the greatest fear of the souls trying to enter the higher level of heavens was
that “sound should break out when each one went up: indeed, each one went
up most gladly when there was silence”.18 Furthermore, despite being accused
of over-interpreting Plato, this view probably reflects Proclus’ understanding
of the music of the Sirens.19 Although the concept of silence evokes the Neo-

12 Westerink 2009, vol.1, 7–19; Markus 2017. For Syrianus’ interest in Phaedo, see d’Hoine 2015;
for the Stoic readings of Phaedo, see Alesse 2015.
13 Chiaradonna 2015.
14 Tarrant 2015, 138–152.
15 Plato developed the notion of attuning to the cosmos influenced by both Democritus (Fer-
werda 1972; Taylor 2007) and Pythagoras (Brancacci 2006, 186 with Frank 1923, 150–184
who argued based on Pl. Resp. 531b that Democritus had formulated a different concept
of harmonia to Pythagoras). Importantly, while for the Pythagoreans the study of music
(and maths) is the contemplation of divine principles, Plato appreciates it merely as pre-
paration for doing so. See Fideler 1987, 35. Of course, he was thoroughly familiar with the
sophists’ interest in music; see Prt. 318e; Hp. Mai. 285b–286c. Also, Novokhatko 2015, 40.
Cf. Rehm 2002, 398, n.34 on Plato’s association of the political and natural kosmoi in Resp.
430d–432a.
16 Anagnostou-Laoutides 2021b, 255–256.
17 See Resp. 620c; cf. Hom. Od. 12.165–200; cf. Díaz de Cerio Díez 2015, 69–74 and 82–85 and
Planinc 2003, 82, 96, 103–107; cf. Symp. 216b1 for a comparison of Socrates with the Sirens;
also, Symp. 215c6–8 on Socrates’ melodies. Note that Heraclitus (Quaest. Hom. 79, 4, fr. 229
Usener) and Epicurus (Letter to Pythocles, 10.6, fr. 163 Usener; also, in Quint. Inst. Or.
12.2.24) understood the Sirens as an allegory to poetry which must be rejected altogether.
18 Resp. 616a8–9: μὴ γένοιτο ἑκάστῳ τὸ φθέγμα ὅτε ἀναβαίνοι, καὶ ἁσμενέστατα ἕκαστον σιγήσαν-
τος ἀναβῆναι.
19 Pépin 1982, 8 with Moro Tornese 2013, 123–124; also, see Lamberton 2012, xviii–xx and Van
Liefferinge 2012, 483–492.
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government which might induce them to doubt the sincerity or
firmness of his Majesty’s government in their determination, already
announced, of maintaining steadfastly the system of defence
adopted by them until the enemy shall relinquish his unwarrantable
mode of attack upon our interests through the violation of neutral
rights.”
Foster regarded this order as a rebuke, for he had talked freely,
both to his own Government and in Washington, of the possibility
that the Orders in Council might be withdrawn. The warning gave
him a manner more formal than usual when he went, March 21, to
assure Monroe that the Prince Regent would never give way.
Monroe listened with great attention; “then merely said, with however
considerable mildness of tone, that he had hoped his conversations
with me at the early part of the session would have produced a
different result.” Foster left him without further discussion, and
announced everywhere in public that, “far from being awed and
alarmed at the threatening attitude and language” of Congress, his
Government would maintain its system unimpaired.[147]
The President looked upon this declaration as final. Already
every preparation had been made to meet it. Only a fortnight before,
the papers of John Henry had been sent to Congress, and the halls
of Congress, as well as the columns of every Republican newspaper
in the country, were filled with denunciations of England’s conduct,
while the President prepared a message recommending an embargo
for sixty days,—a measure preliminary to the declaration of war,—
when March 23, two days after Foster’s interview, news arrived that
a French squadron, under open orders, had begun to burn and sink
American commerce on the ocean. The American brig “Thames”
reached New York March 9, and her captain, Samuel Chew,
deposed before a magistrate that February 2, in the middle of the
Atlantic, his brig on the return voyage from Portugal was seized by a
French squadron which had sailed from Nantes early in January, and
which had already seized and burned the American ship “Asia” and
the brig “Gershom.” The French commodore declared that he had
orders to burn all American vessels sailing to or from an enemy’s
port. The American newspapers were soon deluged with affidavits to
the same effect from the captains and seamen of vessels burned by
these French frigates, and the news, arriving in Washington at a
moment when the Federalists were most eager to retaliate the insult
of the Henry letters, caused extreme sensation. In face of these
piratical acts no one longer pretended that the French Decrees were
repealed. Republicans were angrier than Federalists. Madison and
Monroe were angriest of all. Serurier was in despair. “I am just from
Mr. Monroe’s office,” he wrote March 23;[148] “I have never yet seen
him more agitated, more discomposed. He addressed me abruptly:
‘Well, sir, it is then decided that we are to receive nothing but
outrages from France! And at what a moment too! At the very instant
when we were going to war with her enemies.’” When the French
minister tried to check his vehemence of reproach, Monroe broke out
again:—
“Remember where we were two days ago. You know what warlike
measures have been taken for three months past; adopted slowly,
they have been progressively followed up. We have made use of
Henry’s documents as a last means of exciting (pour achever
d’exalter) the nation and Congress; you have seen by all the use we
have made of them whither we were aiming; within a week we were
going to propose the embargo, and the declaration of war was the
immediate consequence of it. A ship has arrived from London,
bringing us despatches to February 5, which contain nothing offering a
hope of repeal of the orders; this was all that was needed to carry the
declaration of war, which would have passed almost unanimously. It is
at such a moment that your frigates come and burn our ships, destroy
all our work, and put the Administration in the falsest and most terrible
position in which a government can find itself placed.”
For the hundredth time Monroe repeated the old story that the
repeal of the French Decrees was the foundation of the whole
American system; “that should the Executive now propose the
embargo or the declaration of war, the whole Federal party—
reinforced by the Clinton party, the Smith party, and the discontented
Republicans—would rise in mass and demand why we persist in
making war on England for maintaining her Orders in Council when
we have proofs so recent and terrible that the French Decrees are
not withdrawn.” He added that if the question were put at such a
moment, he did not doubt that the Government would lose its
majority.
Foster also attempted to interfere in this complicated quarrel:—
“I took an occasion to wait on Mr. Monroe,” wrote Foster April 1, “to
hear what he would say relative to this outrage. He seemed much
struck with the enormity of it, and ... admitted that there were some
circumstances in this particular instance of peculiar violence, and
calling for the highest expressions of resentment on the part of this
government. He told me that M. Serurier in an interview he had with
him on the subject stated his disbelief in the fact.”
Foster wrote an official note to Monroe, using the recent French
outrages as new ground for demanding to see the instrument by
which the decrees were said to be repealed.
Serurier himself was little pleased with the Emperor’s conduct,
and expressed his annoyance frankly to his Government; but he
consoled himself with the conviction that President Madison could no
longer recede, even if serious in wishing to do so. Congress was
equally helpless. Nothing could exceed the anger of congressmen
with France. As Macon wrote to Nicholson, March 24,[149] after
Captain Chew’s deposition had been read in the House, “the Devil
himself could not tell which government, England or France, is the
most wicked.” The cry for a double war with France as well as with
England became strong enough to create uneasiness; and although
such a triangular war might be a military mistake, no one could
explain the reasoning which led to a declaration of war with England,
on the grounds selected by Madison, without a simultaneous
declaration against France. The responsibility Madison had incurred
would have broken the courage of any man less pertinacious. With
difficulty could the best Republican conceive how the issue with
England could have been worse managed.
At this moment, according to a Federalist legend, Madison was
believed to hesitate, and Clay and Grundy coerced him into the
recommendation of war by threats of opposing his renomination for
the Presidency.[150] In reality, some of the moderate Republicans
urged him to send a special mission to England as a last chance of
peace.[151] Perhaps Clay and Grundy opposed this suggestion with
the warmth ascribed to them, but certainly no sign of hesitation could
be detected in Madison’s conduct between the meeting of Congress
in November and the declaration of war in June.[152] Whatever were
his private feelings, he acted in constant agreement with the majority
of his party, and at most asked only time for some slight armaments.
As to the unprepared state of the country, he said that he did not feel
himself bound to take more than his share of the responsibility.[153]
Even under the exasperation caused by the conduct of France, he
waited only for his party to recover composure. March 31 Monroe
held a conference with the House Committee of Foreign Relations,
and told them that the President thought war should be declared
before Congress adjourned, and that he would send an Embargo
Message if he could be assured it would be agreeable to the House.
[154] On the same day Foster called at the State Department for an
answer to the note in which he had just asked for proof that the
French Decrees were repealed. Monroe made him a reply of which
Foster seemed hardly to appreciate the gravity.[155]
“He told me, a good deal to my disappointment I confess, that the
President did not think it would lead to any utility to order an answer to
be written to either of my last notes; that he could not now entertain
the question as to whether the French Decrees were repealed, having
already been convinced and declared that they were so. He said that
the case of the two American ships which were burned could not be
said to come under the Berlin and Milan Decrees, however
objectionable the act was to this Government; that the declaration of
the French commodore of his having orders to burn all ships bound to
or from an enemy’s port was given only verbally, and might not have
been well understood by the American captain, who did not very well
understand French; while the declaration in writing only alluded to
ships bound to or from Lisbon and Cadiz.”
Nothing could be more humiliating to Monroe than the resort to
subterfuge like this; but the President left no outlet of escape. The
Committee of Foreign Relations decided in favor of an embargo; and
April 1, the day after this interview, Madison sent to Congress a
secret Message, which was read with closed doors:—
 “Considering it as expedient, under existing circumstances and
prospects, that a general embargo be laid on all vessels now in port or
hereafter arriving for the period of sixty days, I recommend the
immediate passage of a law to that effect.”
 CHAPTER X.
When news of this decisive step became public, the British
minister hastened to Monroe for explanations.[156] Monroe
“deprecated its being considered as a war measure. He even
seemed to affect to consider it as an impartial measure toward the
two belligerents, and as thereby complying with one of our demands;
namely, putting them on an equality.... He used an expression which
I had some difficulty in comprehending,—that it was the wish of the
Government to keep their policy in their own hands.” In truth Monroe
seemed, to the last, inclined to leave open a door by which the anger
of America might, in case of reconciliation with England, be diverted
against France. Madison had no such delusion. Foster went to the
President, and repeated to him Monroe’s remark that the embargo
was not a war measure.[157] “Oh, no!” said Madison, “embargo is not
war;” but he added that in his opinion the United States would be
amply justified in war, whatever might be its expediency, for Great
Britain was actually waging war on them, and within a month had
captured eighteen ships of the estimated value of fifteen hundred
thousand dollars. He said he should be glad still to receive any
propositions England might have to make, and that Congress would
be in session at the period fixed for terminating the embargo. Neither
Madison nor Monroe could properly say more to the British minister,
for they could not undertake to forestall the action of Congress; but
the rumor that France might be included in the declaration of war as
in the embargo, made the French minister uneasy, and he too asked
explanation. To him the secretary talked more plainly.[158]
“Mr. Monroe answered me,” wrote Serurier April 9, “that the
embargo had been adopted in view of stopping the losses of
commerce, and of preparing for the imminent war with England; he
protested to me his perfect conviction that war was inevitable if the
news expected from France answered to the hopes they had formed.
He gave me his word of honor that in the secret deliberations of
Congress no measure had been taken against France. He admitted
that in fact the affair of the frigates had produced a very deep
impression on that body; that it had, even in Republican eyes, seemed
 manifest proof that the Imperial Decrees were not repealed, and that
this unfortunate accident had shaken (ébranlé) the whole base of the
Administration system; that the Executive, by inclination as much as
by system, had always wished to believe in this repeal, without which
it was impossible to make issue (engager la querelle) with England;
that its interest in this respect was perfectly in accord with that of
France, but that he had found it wholly impossible to justify the
inconceivable conduct of the commander of the frigates.... Mr. Monroe
insisted here on his former declarations, that if the Administration was
abandoned by France it would infallibly succumb, or would be obliged
to propose war against both Powers, which would be against its
interests as much as against its inclination.”
The Embargo Message surprised no one. The Committee of
Foreign Relations made no secret of its decision. Calhoun warned
Josiah Quincy and other representatives of commercial cities; and
on the afternoon of March 31 these members sent an express, giving
notice to their constituents that the embargo would be proposed on
the following day. Every ship-owner on the seaboard and every
merchant in the great cities hurried ships and merchandise to sea,
showing that they feared war less than they feared embargo, at the
moment when Congress, April 1, went into secret session to discuss
the measure intended to protect ship-owners and merchants by
keeping their property at home. Porter introduced the bill laying an
embargo for sixty days;[159] Grundy declared it to be intended as a
measure leading directly to war; Henry Clay made a vehement
speech approving the measure on that ground. On the other side
Randolph declared war to be impossible; the President dared not be
guilty of treason so gross and unparalleled as that of plunging an
unprepared nation into such a conflict. Randolph even read
memoranda of Monroe’s remarks to the Committee of Foreign
Relations: “The embargo would leave the policy as respected
France, and indeed of both countries, in our hands;” and from this he
tried to convince the House that the embargo was not honestly
intended as a war measure. The debate ran till evening, when by a
vote of sixty-six to forty the previous question was ordered. Without
listening to the minority the House then hurried the bill through all its
stages, and at nine o’clock passed it by a vote of seventy to forty-
one.
 The majority numbered less than half the members. In 1807 the
House imposed the embargo by a vote of eighty-two to forty-four, yet
the country failed to support it. The experience of 1807 boded ill for
that of 1812. In the Senate the outlook was worse. The motion to
extend the embargo from sixty to ninety days was adopted without
opposition, changing the character of the bill at a single stroke from a
strong war measure into a weak measure of negotiation; but even in
this weaker form it received only twenty votes against thirteen in
opposition. The President could not depend on a bare majority in the
Senate. The New England Democrats shrank from the embargo
even more than from war. Giles and Samuel Smith stood in open
opposition. The Clintons had become candidates of every
discontented faction in the country. Had the vote in the Senate been
counted by States, only six would have been thrown for the
embargo, and of these only Pennsylvania from the North. In face of
such distraction, war with England seemed worse than a gambler’s
risk.
Madison, watching with that apparent neutrality which irritated
both his friends and his enemies, reported to Jefferson the progress
of events.[160] He was not pleased with the Senate’s treatment of his
recommendations, or with “that invariable opposition, open with
some and covert with others, which has perplexed and impeded the
whole course of our public measures.” He explained the motives of
senators in extending the embargo from sixty to ninety days. Some
wished to make it a peace measure, some to postpone war, some to
allow time for the return of their constituents’ ships; some intended it
as a ruse against the enemy. For his own part he had regarded a
short embargo as a rational and provident measure, which would be
relished by the greater part of the nation; but he looked upon it as a
step to immediate war, and he waited only for the Senate to make
the declaration.
The President asked too much. Congress seemed exhausted by
the efforts it had made, and the country showed signs of greater
exhaustion before having made any efforts at all. The complaints
against France, against the non-importation, against the embargo,
and against the proposed war were bitter and general. April 6
Massachusetts held the usual State election. Gerry was again the
Republican candidate for governor, and the Federalists had little
hope of defeating him; but the Republican Administration had proved
so unpopular, the famous Gerrymander by which the State had been
divided into districts in party interests had so irritated the
conservative feeling, that the new embargo and the expected war
were hardly needed to throw the State again into opposition. Not
even the revelations of John Henry restored the balance. More than
one hundred and four thousand votes were cast, and a majority of
about twelve hundred appeared on the Federalist side. Caleb Strong
became governor once more at a moment when the change
paralyzed national authority in New England; and meanwhile
throughout the country the enlistments for the new army produced
barely one thousand men.
The month of April passed without legislation that could
strengthen Government, except an Act, approved April 10,
authorizing the President to call out one hundred thousand militia for
six months’ service. Congress showed so strong a wish to adjourn
that the Administration was obliged to exert its whole influence to
prevent the House from imitating the Senate, which by a vote of
sixteen to fifteen adopted a Resolution for a recess until June 8.
Secretary Gallatin ventured to bring no tax bills before Congress;
Lowndes and Cheves made a vigorous effort to suspend the Non-
importation Act; and a general belief prevailed that the Government
wished to admit English goods in order to evade, by increase of
customs-revenue, the necessity of taxation.
Serurier, much discomposed by these signs of vacillation, busied
himself in the matter, declaring to his friends in Congress that he
should look on any suspension of the Non-importation Act as a
formal infraction of the compact with France. When he pressed
Monroe with remonstrances,[161] Monroe told him, April 22, that the
President and Cabinet had positively and unanimously declared to
the Committee of Foreign Relations against the suspension,
because it would seem to indicate indecision and inconsequence in
their foreign policy; that this remonstrance had caused the plan to be
given up, but that the Administration might still be obliged to consent
to a short adjournment, so great was the wish of members to look
after their private affairs. In fact, Congress showed no other wish
than to escape, and leave the President to struggle with his
difficulties alone.
If the war party hesitated in its allegiance to Madison, its doubts
regarded his abilities rather than his zeal. Whatever might be
Madison’s genius, no one supposed it to be that of administration.
His health was delicate; he looked worn and feeble; for many years
he had shown none of the energy of youth; he was likely to succumb
under the burden of war; and, worst of all, he showed no
consciousness of needing support. The party was unanimous in
believing Secretary Eustis unequal to his post, but Madison made no
sign of removing him. So general was the impression of Eustis’s
incapacity that when, April 24, the President sent to Congress a
message asking for two Assistant Secretaries of War to aid in
conducting the Department, the request was commonly regarded as
an evasion of the public demand for a new Secretary of War, and as
such was unfavorably received. In the House, where the subject was
openly discussed, Randolph defended Eustis in the style of which he
was master: “I will say this much of the Secretary of War,—that I do
verily believe, and I have grounds to believe it to be the opinion of a
majority of this House, that he is at least as competent to the
exercise of his duties as his colleague who presides over the
Marine.” The Senate, wishing perhaps to force the President into
reconstructing his Cabinet, laid aside the bill creating two Assistant
Secretaries of War; and with this action, May 6, ended the last
chance of efficiency in that Department.
While Eustis ransacked the country for generals, colonels, and
the whole staff of officers, as well as the clothing, arms, and blankets
for an army of twenty-five thousand men who could not be found,
Gallatin labored to provide means for meeting the first year’s
expenses. Having no longer the Bank to help him, he dealt
separately with the State Banks through whose agency private
subscriptions were to be received. The subscriptions were to be
opened on the first and second days of May. The Republican
newspapers, led by the “National Intelligencer,”[162] expressed the
hope and the expectation that twice the amount of the loan would be
instantly subscribed. Their disappointment was very great. Federalist
New England refused to subscribe at all; and as the Federalists
controlled most of the capital in the country, the effect of their
abstention was alarming. In all New England not one million dollars
were obtained. New York and Philadelphia took each about one and
a half million. Baltimore and Washington took about as much more.
The whole Southern country, from the Potomac to Charleston,
subscribed seven hundred thousand dollars. Of the entire loan,
amounting to eleven million dollars, a little more than six millions
were taken; and considering the terms, the result was not surprising.
At a time when the old six-per-cent loans, with ten or twelve years to
run, stood barely at par, any new six-per-cent loan to a large amount,
with a vast war in prospect, could hardly be taken at the same rate.
The Federalists, delighted with this failure, said, with some show
of reason, that if the Southern States wanted the war they ought to
supply the means, and had no right to expect that men who thought
the war unjust and unnecessary should speculate to make money
from it. Gallatin put a good face on his failure, and proposed soon to
reopen subscriptions; but the disappointment was real.
“Whatever the result may be,” wrote Serurier to his Government,
[163] “they had counted on more national energy on the opening of a
first loan for a war so just. This cooling of the national pulse, the
resistance which the Northern States seem once more willing to offer
the Administration, the defection it meets every day in Congress,—all
this, joined to its irritation at our measures which make its own system
unpopular, adds to its embarrassment and hesitation.”
Gallatin made no complaints, but he knew only too well what lay
before him. No resource remained except treasury notes bearing
interest. Neither Gallatin, nor any other party leader, cared to
suggest legal-tender notes, which were supposed to be not only an
admission of national bankruptcy at the start, but also forbidden by
the spirit of the Constitution; yet the government could hardly fail to
experience the same form of bankruptcy in a less convenient shape.
After the destruction of the United States Bank, a banking mania
seized the public. Everywhere new banks were organized or
planned, until the legislature of New York, no longer contented with
small corporations controlling capital of one or two hundred thousand
dollars, prepared to incorporate the old Bank of the United States
under a new form, with a capital of six millions. Governor Tompkins
stopped the project by proroguing the legislature; but his message
gave the astonishing reason that the legislature was in danger of
yielding to bribery.[164] The majority protested against the charge,
and denounced it as a breach of privilege; but whether it was well or
ill founded, the influence of the banking mania on State legislatures
could not fail to be corrupting. The evil, inherent in the origin of the
new banks, was aggravated by their management. Competition and
want of experience or of supervision, inevitably led to over-issue,
inflation of credit, suspension of specie payments, and paper-money
of the worst character. Between a debased currency of private
corporations and a debased currency of government paper, the
former was the most expensive and the least convenient; yet it was
the only support on which the Treasury could depend.
Early in May a double election took place, which gave more
cause of alarm. New York chose a Federalist Assembly, and
Massachusetts chose a General Court more strongly Federalist than
any one had ventured to expect. In the face of such a revolution in
two of the greatest and richest States in the Union, President,
Cabinet, and legislators had reason to hesitate; they had even
reason to fear that the existence of the Union might hang on their
decision. They knew the Executive Department to be incompetent for
war; they had before their eyes the spectacle of an incompetent
Congress; and they saw the people declaring, as emphatically as
their democratic forms of government permitted, their unwillingness
to undertake the burden. Even bold men might pause before a
situation so desperate.
Thus the month of May passed, full of discouragement. Congress
did not adjourn, but the members went home on leave, with the
understanding that no further action should be taken until June. At
home they found chaos. Under the coercion of embargo, commerce
ceased. Men would do little but talk politics, and very few professed
themselves satisfied with the condition into which their affairs had
been brought. The press cried for war or for peace, according to its
fancy; but although each of the old parties could readily prove the
other’s course to be absurd, unpatriotic, and ruinous, the war men,
who were in truth a new party, powerless to restore order by
legitimate methods, shut their ears to the outcry, and waited until
actual war should enforce a discipline never to be imposed in peace.
The experiment of thrusting the country into war to inflame it, as
crude ore might be thrown into a furnace, was avowed by the party
leaders, from President Madison downward, and was in truth the
only excuse for a course otherwise resembling an attempt at suicide.
Many nations have gone to war in pure gayety of heart; but perhaps
the United States were first to force themselves into a war they
dreaded, in the hope that the war itself might create the spirit they
lacked. One of the liveliest and most instructive discussions of the
session, May 6, threw light upon the scheme by which the youthful
nation was to reverse the process of Medea, and pass through the
caldron of war in confidence of gaining the vigor of age. Mr. Bleecker
of New York, in offering petitions for the repeal of the embargo,
argued that the embargo could not be honestly intended. “Where are
your armies; your navy? Have you money? No, sir! Rely upon it,
there will be, there can be, no war—active, offensive war—within
sixty days.” War would be little short of treason; would bring shame,
disgrace, defeat; and meanwhile the embargo alienated the people
of States which must necessarily bear much of the burden. These
arguments were supported by John Randolph.
“I am myself,” he said, “in a situation similar to what would have
been that of one of the unfortunate people of Caracas, if preadvised of
the danger which overhung his country. I know that we are on the
brink of some dreadful scourge, some great desolation, some awful
visitation from that Power whom, I am afraid, we have as yet in our
national capacity taken no pains to conciliate.... Go to war without
money, without men, without a navy! Go to war when we have not the
courage, while your lips utter war, to lay war taxes! when your whole
courage is exhibited in passing Resolutions! The people will not
believe it!”
Richard M. Johnson undertook first to meet these criticisms.
Johnson possessed courage and abilities, but he had not, more than
other Kentuckians of his day, the caution convenient in the face of
opponents. He met by threats the opposition he would not answer. “It
was a Tory opposition, in the cities and seaports; and an opposition
which would not be quite so bold and powerful in a time of war; and
he trusted in that Heaven to which the gentleman from Virginia had
appealed, that sixty days would not elapse before all the traitorous
combinations and opposition to the laws and the acts of the general
government would in a great measure cease, or change, and
moderate their tone.” Calhoun, who followed Johnson, expressed the
same idea in less offensive form, and added opinions of his own
which showed the mental condition in which the young war leaders
exulted: “So far from being unprepared, sir, I believe that in four
weeks from the time that a declaration of war is heard on our
frontiers the whole of Upper and a part of Lower Canada will be in
our possession.”
Grundy, following in the debate, used neither threats like
Johnson, nor prophecies like Calhoun; but his argument was not
more convincing. “It is only while the public mind is held in
suspense,” he said; “it is only while there is doubt as to what will be
the result of our deliberations,—it is only while we linger in this Hall
that any manifestations of uneasiness will show themselves.
Whenever war is declared, the people will put forth their strength to
support their rights.” He went so far as to add that when war should
be once begun, the distinction between Federalists and Republicans
would cease. Finally, Wright of Maryland, whose words fortunately
carried little weight, concluded the debate by saying that if signs of
treason and civil war should discover themselves in any part of the
American empire, he had no doubt the evil would soon be radically
cured by hemp and confiscation; and his own exertions should not
be spared to employ the remedy.
The President himself had no other plan than to “throw forward
the flag of the country, sure that the people would press onward and
defend it.”[165] The example he had himself given to the people in
1798 tended to cast doubt on the correctness of his judgment,[166]
but his candidacy for the Presidency also shook confidence in his
good faith. So deep was the conviction of his dislike for the policy he
supported as to lead the British minister, May 3, to inform his
Government that the jealousies between the younger and older
members of Congress threatened an open schism, in which the
President was supposed likely to be involved.[167]
“The reason why there has been no nomination made in caucus
yet, by the Democratic members, of Mr. Madison as candidate for the
Presidency is, as I am assured in confidence, because the war party
have suspected him not to have been serious in his late hostile
measures, and wish previously to ascertain his real sentiments. I have
been endeavoring to put the Federalists upon insinuating that they will
support him, if he will agree to give up the advocates for war.”
This intrigue was stopped by the positive refusal of the eastern
Federalists to support Madison on any terms,—they preferred
coalition with DeWitt Clinton and the Republican malcontents; but
the time had come when some nomination must be made, and when
it arrived, all serious thought of an open Republican schism at
Washington vanished. The usual Congressional caucus was called
May 18, and was attended by eighty-three members and senators,
who unanimously renominated Madison. Seventeen senators, just
one half the Senate, and sixty-six members, almost one half the
House, joined in the nomination; but only three New York members
took part, and neither Giles nor Samuel Smith was present,—they
had ceased to act with the Republican party. Only a few weeks
before, Vice-President Clinton had died in office, and whatever
respect the Administration may have felt for his great name and
Revolutionary services, the party was relieved at the prospect of
placing in the chair of the Senate some man upon whom it could
better depend. The caucus named John Langdon of New
Hampshire; and when he declined, Elbridge Gerry, the defeated
Governor of Massachusetts, was selected as candidate for the Vice-
presidency.
So little cordiality was felt for President Madison by his party that
only the want of a strong rival reconciled a majority to the choice; but
although Clay, Crawford, and Calhoun accepted the necessity, the
State of New York flatly rebelled. At Albany, when the news arrived
that the Washington caucus had named Madison for the Presidency,
the Republican members of the State legislature called for May 29 a
caucus of their own. Their whole number was ninety-five; of these,
all but four attended, and eighty-seven voted that it was expedient to
name a candidate for the Presidency. Ninety members then voted to
support DeWitt Clinton against Madison, and Clinton formally
accepted the nomination. This unusual unanimity among the New
York Republicans raised the movement somewhat above the level of
ordinary New York politics, and pointed to a growing jealousy of
Virginia, which threatened to end in revival of the old alliance
between New York and New England. Even in quiet times this
prospect would have been alarming; in face of war, it threatened to
be fatal.
During the entire month of May Congress passed, with only one
exception, no Act for war purposes. While the absent members
attended to their private affairs, Government waited for the last
despatches from abroad. The sloop-of-war “Hornet,” after long delay,
arrived at New York, May 19, and three days afterward the
despatches reached Washington. Once more, but for the last time,
the town roused itself to learn what hope of peace they contained.
As far as concerned Great Britain, the news would at any
previous time have checked hostile action, for it showed that the
British government had taken alarm, and that for the first time a real
change of policy was possible; but this news came from unofficial
sources, and could not be laid before Congress. Officially, the British
government still stoutly maintained that it could not yield. Lord
Wellesley had given place to Lord Castlereagh. In a very long
despatch,[168] dated April 10, the new Foreign Minister pleaded
earnestly that England could not submit herself to the mercy of
France. The argument of Lord Castlereagh rested on an official
report made by the Duc de Bassano to the Emperor, March 10, in
which Napoleon reasserted his rules regarding neutrals in language
quite as strong as that of his decrees, and reasserted the validity of
those decrees, without exception, in regard to every neutral that did
not recognize their provisions. Certainly, no proof could be imagined
competent to show the continued existence of the decrees if
Bassano’s report failed to do so; and Castlereagh, with some
reason, relied on this evidence to convince not so much the
American government as the American people that a deception had
been practised, and that England could not act as America required
without submitting to Napoleon’s principles as well as to his arms.
Embarrassing as this despatch was to President Madison, it was
not all, or the worst; but Serurier himself described the other
annoyance in terms as lively as his feelings:[169]—
“The ‘Hornet’ has at last arrived. On the rumor of this news, the
avenues of the State Department were thronged by a crowd of
members of both Houses of Congress, as well as by strangers and
citizens, impatient to know what this long-expected vessel had
brought. Soon it was learned that the ‘Hornet’ had brought nothing
favorable, and that Mr. Barlow had as yet concluded nothing with your
Excellency. On this news, the furious declamations of the Federalists,
of the commercial interests, and of the numerous friends of England
were redoubled; the Republicans, deceived in their hopes, joined in
the outcry, and for three days nothing was heard but a general cry for
war against France and England at once.... I met Mr. Monroe at the
Speaker’s house; he came to me with an air of affliction and
discouragement; addressed me with his old reproach that decidedly
we abandoned the Administration, and that he did not know
henceforward how they could extricate themselves from the difficult
position into which their confidence in our friendship had drawn them.”
Serurier had no reason for uneasiness on his own account. The
President and his party could not go backward in their path; yet no
enemy could have devised a worse issue than that on which the
President had placed the intended war with England. Every Act of
Congress and every official expression of Madison’s policy had been
founded on the withdrawal of the French Decrees as they affected
American commerce. This withdrawal could no longer be
maintained, and Madison merely shook confidence in his own good
faith by asserting it; yet he could do nothing else. “It is understood,”
he wrote to Jefferson at this crisis,[170] “that the Berlin and Milan
Decrees are not in force against the United States, and no
contravention of them can be established against her. On the
contrary, positive cases rebut the allegation.” Yet he said that “the
business has become more than ever puzzling;” he was withheld
only by political and military expediency from favoring war with
France. He wrote to Joel Barlow,[171] after full knowledge of
Napoleon’s conduct, that “in the event of a pacification with Great
Britain the full tide of indignation with which the public mind here is
boiling will be directed against France, if not obviated by a due
reparation of her wrongs; war will be called for by the nation almost
unâ voce.”
A position so inconsistent with itself could not be understood by
the people. Every one knew that if the decrees were not avowedly
enforced in France against the United States, they were relaxed only
because Madison had submitted to their previous enforcement, and
had, in Napoleon’s opinion, recognized their legality. The Republican
press, which supported Madison most energetically, made no
concealment of its active sympathies with Napoleon, even in Spain.
What wonder if large numbers of good citizens who believed
Napoleon to be anti-Christ should be disposed to resist, even to the
verge of treason, the attempt to use their lives and fortunes in a
service they regarded with horror!